Big Head 'Giants' from Friends of Tourcoing at Milnrow Carnival

Big Head 'Giants' from Friends of Tourcoing at Milnrow Carnival

The Big Head 'Giants' from Friends of Tourcoing came to Milnrow Carnival on Saturday.

The Friends of Tourcoing Association attended the Milnrow and Newhey Carnival to promote their social Town Twinning community group and took part in fundraising by holding a fabulous tombola stall, which drew plenty of attention from the crowds too.

Friends of Tourcoing Association have a strong Civic and family Twinning friendship with Les Amis De Rochdale in Tourcoing in Northern France and enjoy biennial visits to each other’s towns.

Many of the towns in France celebrate a long historical tradition of having a resident Géant.

Many of the hand-crafted characters can be over 20ft tall and need two or three people inside their bodies to manoeuvre them along the streets of the towns during the Festival of Giants, when they all come together.

There are baptisms, birthday parties and weddings arranged for the Géants between towns, with ceremonies and celebrations enjoyed by everyone.

The Tourcoing Géant is called le duc d’Havré and he was created in 2006 in order to promote Tourcoing and the brotherhood of the Dukes d’Havré who started off as a group of shopkeepers back in 2003,

They wanted to try to restore Tourcoing's identity and revive the city they loved.

The first thing they did was create a Tourquennese beer which they named the duc d’Havré and it was launched in 2004 at the festival of Gambrinales. The duc Géant is 4.80 mtrs high or as tall as the average house eaves.

Kathryn Rennie and Gareth Connolly, who made their giant heads and costumes, did so as a tribute to the French tradition.

Gareth said: "The children either loved us or were a little wary, but we made some firm friends on the day.

“Next year we may go taller and bigger but we would then need somewhere big to store them."

Friends of Tourcoing are taking part in the Heywood carnival parade and park event in September with the Big Head Giants and a carnival ‘float’.